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Original poster

UK and USA - compare and contrast

141 replies

KateandtheGirls · 07/11/2004 14:11

Turquoise and I were talking a little bit about this earlier this week and we thought it would be interesting to start a thread.

Now I know there are many problems in the USA, and I'm still feeling quite sickened by the way the majority of people in this country voted the other day. But in a lot of ways things are so much more pleasant and civilised here.

For example:

*Halloween. Trick or Treating is a fun activity for the kids. No-one's house gets vandalised if they don't have treats.

*Bonfire Night/July 4 (i.e. the night when there are fireworks). Again, this is done in a fun, civilised manner. There certainly aren't gangs of teenagers roaming around letting off fireworks at all times of the night.

*Houses/cars being broken into. Happens a lot more often in the UK. In fact a lot of people here don't even lock their cars, and some people don't lock their house doors when they're out. There's a level of trust here that you don't get in the UK.

Thoughts? Comments?

OP posts:
tex111 · 07/11/2004 15:23

Canada intrigues me. I've never been there but from what I hear and read there seems to be a nice balance of the positives of American and British culture. Would you agree with that?

OldieMum · 07/11/2004 15:25

When I spent some time in Toronto, a friend described it as 'New York, run by the Swiss'.

NotQuiteCockney · 07/11/2004 15:30

Yeah, that's pretty fair. Canadians pride themselves on being polite, orderly and tidy. Really, they're not that much different from Americans, though.

I prefer the UK, though. Canada has a strong car culture (which I hate). People are still, to my ear, more rude there than here in the UK. (Particularly, people are more rude to waiters and similar. I don't know why, but this annoys me immensely. Maybe because waiters are obliged to be polite back?)

I may just be a natural ex-pat, I left English-speaking Canada when I was 18 and never really went back. The annoyances of another culture are always less annoying than the ones you're already sick of from your own culture.

NotQuiteCockney · 07/11/2004 15:31

To be fair, Canada does better on non-smoking spaces. The food in Montreal is about a billion times better than even London food, even now. Oh, and cheaper.

Also, I find the alcohol culture here completely outrageous.

morningpaper · 07/11/2004 15:37

NQC: the alcohol culture here in the UK is the thing I hate most. We are absolute PIGS. I'm sure it's because all our pubs close at 11, but even if that was to change, binge-drinking is so ingrained into our culture, I can't imagine it changing.

I went into a pub recently and they didn't even have BEER on draught!!! Just rows and rows of back-lit blue and pink bottles of vodka/rum mixers, which taste like someone's dropped a bag of Skittles into a bottle of Happy Shopper lemonade - so teenagers don't even have to withstand the taste of alcohol to get drunk! And God knows, they'll never develop any kind of palate for decent wine or whiskey...

hana · 07/11/2004 16:25

notquitecockney - don't agreee about the rudeness thing in Canada vs UK - I have gone through soooo many transactions at a till whether it be in Tescos or a gas station or a clothes shop where I wasn't even spoken to apart from what I owed.....lots of times the slip for me to sign is just shoved in front of my face.........can never get over that. I find also that waiters in Canada and the interactions between customers to be far friendlier - agree with Tex about the grocery store cashier story - it happens to me when I'm home visiting. I can never quite get used to the chattiness of the cashiers and at the beginning of my visits I think it's really OTT , but by the end it's just normal to hear again. I love lots of things about the UK (have been here 8 years) and the grass isn't always greener 'back home' and it's a generalization of course,.........but I do find customer service here to be somewhat lacking!!

everyone is now going to share friendly UK customer services stories.........!

tex111 · 07/11/2004 16:34

No hana, I agree with you. Customer service in England is dire. Once when some American friends came to visit the waiter service was so poor where we went for lunch (got the order wrong, brought the food at different times, started to clear before we were finished, etc) that we ended up in tears of laughter. It was just so absurd. By the way Hana, I know you spent some time in Japan - talk about GREAT customer service. There's no shame there in being in a 'menial' job and I love the culture of taking pride in one's work. I'll always remember the guy who cleaned the public rubbish bins outside our flat in Tokyo. He was so thorough and smiled and said hello to everyone.

I think there's a bit of that in the US but sometimes it's just about getting commission or good tips. My sister paid her way through college waitressing and, though she's genuinely friendly and hardworking, she told me there were things she always did like touching a customer on the arm and making sure she got the name of the 'Top Dog' at the table and then used it next time she spoke to them. She raked in the tips!

JuniperDewdrop · 07/11/2004 16:36

where in the UK are you hana? I'm just thinking of the north/south divide It's just I find it much friendlier up here but to be fair I haven't spent that much time in the south so I could be wrong?

tex111 · 07/11/2004 16:39

The alcohol culture is a tricky one. I find that it's too taboo in the US and perhaps a bit over the top here in the UK. I remember organising a conference (from the UK) at the Dallas Museum of Art a few years ago. They asked what drinks I would like served with lunch and I said some bottled water, some orange juice, a bottle of red, a bottle of white and a few beers. There was an audible gasp at the other end of the phone! To me, that's just silly but getting drunk until you fall down in ridiculous too. Hey! Maybe Canada gets it right?!

JuniperDewdrop · 07/11/2004 16:41

My nephews have been brought up in San Antonio TX and they hardly drink at all. They're 19 and 21.

moomina · 07/11/2004 16:43

The one thing that always struck me during my time in the US was the importance of local community, which I think is something that really doesn't exist as such in the UK anymore. By this I mean the feeling you get that Americans, whether they are from New York or Hicksville, not only think that where they are from (and I mean their specific town or state, not the USA as a whole) is The Greatest Place On Earth, but also that they really care about it, too. People do seem to get involved in their local community far more than we do in the UK, people seem to know and care about what's going on in their town, etc. I'm probably not explaining it terribly well as it's hard to put a finger on exactly what the difference is - a sense of real community is the best way I can describe it.

Ironic, therefore, that one of the things I dislike most about the US is its inward-looking, isolationist, 'we're the best and we only care about what's good for us' attitude. On a small scale, it's heartwarming and a genuine Good Thing, imo. Translate it into a foreign policy, however...

hmb · 07/11/2004 16:43

I think that whatever generalisation that you make can be pulled apart by looking at different part of each country. For example I live in the Eadt Midlands, I am not a local, but I find the people to be very helpful and friendly. I realise that this might not the the case in some cities in the UK. I am sure that the same is true in the US.

We make kids grow up too soon , but so do some parts of the states, think of the kiddie beauty contests.

I think that in general cities in the States are more violent than in the UK, where gun crime is still rare enough to be a big deal.

I think that there is a more 'get up and go' culture in the States. We are more prone to do nothing about probelms and just moan about things.

I think that you stand a better chance of 'making good' in the states if you start from the middle classes. I'd rather live in the UK if I were poor.

All gross generalisations. natch!

turquoise · 07/11/2004 16:48

Do you think that's because of people's attitudes JD or the law? The ID laws are really enforced around here and I have never seen a single drunk teen. In fact, I left my kids with a 15 year old boy I'd never met before babysitting a week ago (nieghbour of a friend) - which I would never do in England without fear of coming back to him and probably his mates having drunk themselves silly.

tex111 · 07/11/2004 16:48

Do they have a healthy view of alcohol JuniperDewdrop or is it seen as the Devil's Drink? I grew up in a dry town, you couldn't even get wine in a nice restaurant unless you drove outside the town limits. Drinking alcohol meant you were a bad person. In my experience this had the opposite to the intended effect on young people. Most of the kids I knew got fake IDs, went into Dallas to buy booze (usually things like Everclear which is virtually rubbing alcohol) and drank themselves silly then got behind the wheel.

It's a bit like the whole sex education issue and abstinence. I think it's better to teach kids that alcohol can be a part of normal life. It's not about breaking rules and getting wasted. It can be sociable, enjoyable, etc as long as it's drunk responsibly.

tex111 · 07/11/2004 16:52

And that leads me to my least favourite thing about the States.... hypocrisy. This may be especially true in the Bible Belt where I grew up but you can bet that the kids who were getting the most drunk were the kids of the preachers, policeofficers, council members, etc, etc and they would also be the same kids that headed up the 'Just Say No' clubs and smiled like little angels in church on Sunday.

tex111 · 07/11/2004 16:53

JuniperDewdrop, certainly not implying that that's true with your nephews, just my experience. And I should add that my Dad was a police officer .

JJ · 07/11/2004 16:54

Just a quick note -- rubbing alcohol is generally isopropanol not ethanol (drinking alcohol) and will make a person vv sick and not at all drunk if he/she drinks it.

Just in case any kiddies reading (don't know why they would be, but) are reading this!

JuniperDewdrop · 07/11/2004 17:00

Tex, their mum is English so she influences them too. They have a healthy attitude and when over here have one or two but don't get drunk. I'm very proud of them and the way she's brought them up

tex111 · 07/11/2004 17:00

Thanks JJ.

tex111 · 07/11/2004 17:01

JuniperDewDrop, that's so refreshing. I hope DS gets the benefits of both cultures in that way. Inspiring.

tex111 · 07/11/2004 17:06

Thinking about it more I'm probably being unfair to the US when it comes to hypocrisy. It seemed to come most often from the religious right which I was surrounded by in Texas. My friends who didn't go to church didn't seem to have the same issues about being 'good' and doing what they wanted to do. They just got on with things. They were, of course, openly judged and ridiculed by the church kids (who were often doing far worse) but, going back to the election, that seems to be the nature of the very conservative.

hana · 07/11/2004 17:06

juniperdewdrop - yup, am in London.......so this is what colours my opinions and perceptions. But I live in a lovely area with great highsteet - it's in the nat'l stores that I find the indifference and rudeness, not locally in 'my' area

JuniperDewdrop · 07/11/2004 17:13

That's good hana My cousin lives in crouch end and seems very happy there too. I haven't been to visit though as we aren't close unfortunately.

hmb · 07/11/2004 17:18

I think that you can see hypocricy in any culture. Whever someone sets themselves up as following a particulat creed, you just know that people will fall off the straight and narrow. You only have to look at the behaviour of MPs in the UK to see that, or footballers for that matter.

tex111 · 07/11/2004 17:26

Hmb, I'm sure you're right. I think I'm quite bitter about it because it seems so rife in Texas. Some friends recently moved house because their very nice neighborhood with it's street parties and card game evening deliberately excluded two families - one Jewish and one Black. Absolutely true. Makes me feel ill to know that kind of thing is still going on. Does that happen in England? I've not come across it myself in 10 years but perhaps it does.